Being Prepared Realistically

Here we are with another episode! Today we talked about being prepared and what that looks like realistically.

It means focusing on the things that are more likely to occur. We can't foresee every possible scenario. It's more about just doing what we can with what we have and focusing on best case scenario playing or hope for the best plan for the worst. We can't really depend on the supply chain, necessarily, but at the same time, you find ways to source locally.

There's plenty to go around. It's just a matter of using those resources better. Focus not so much on having a stock, a long term stockpile. But focus on preserving your own stuff, having enough for your family for however many months or at the most for the next year. And really just focusing on creating or learning skills that are going to help you in emergency help you to rebuild.

In the end, it is best to support our local farmers and find ways to source that stuff locally to help you become prepared in any kind of situation.

Links mentioned in this episode:
2022 Seed Varieties
Pampered Gardener Box by Kitchen Botanicals
The Self Sufficient Life
Not So Modern Living

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Transcript

Bonnie Von Dohre: 0:01

Welcome back to the Grounded in Simplicity Podcast. I'm Bonnie from The Not So Modern Housewife. And I'm joined by my good friend Danielle from the Rustic Elk. And we are here to help moms live more simply and find joy in being less busy. Today we are talking about being prepared. And what that looks like realistically. This is gonna be fun. All right. I feel like we should say a disclaimer that we are not preppers. And we don't think that being a prepper is the same as being prepared.

Danielle McCoy: 0:34

You could also say that preppers aren't necessarily homesteaders. But in some fashion, all homesteaders are preppers.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 0:41

True, I guess sort of. To me, yeah, to me, the big distinction to me is that a lot of preppers are more focused on stockpiling. Then figuring out how to do things themselves. Now there are a lot of preppers who do vote, they have a stockpile, because I mean, there's going to be some things that are going to be really hard for us to make ourselves like I know preppers, who will stockpile medication stockpile ammo. Now, technically, you could make your own ammo, but I think I think their thinking is that, at least for the interim? Well, a lot of them are really looking at it as almost being a form of currency. When stuff hits the fan, then, you know, there'll be able to trade medicine and an ammo for stuff they need. The thing is like, well, it's fun to think about living in a dystopian world. The reality of living in dystopian world is, you know, I really hope it never happens. But there are so many things that are, we are more likely to come across, then like total societal collapse. So for me, I would rather focus on the things that are more likely to occur. And plus, like, I don't have a lot of storage space. And if we're talking about trying to live simply and get back to basics, to me, like having a stockpile of stuff is the opposite of that. Because all you're doing is one, you're living in a fear mindset. But you're also you're collecting all of this clutter. That really, like just weighs on you mentally.

Danielle McCoy: 2:30

Right. And I also think, you know, I was talking to somebody about this a while back. And I said, You know how people survived the Great Depression. And the second world war wasn't because they had bunches of crap, stuffed in some closet somewhere. And underneath their bed, it was because they knew how to do things, and their supply chain was local. So I think right, you know, like, instead of saying, Oh, well, I need to make sure that I have 200 jars of mentos, you would say that, you know, I need to know how to grow those or where I can source them locally. Because if stuff really hit the fan, then having that skill set is going to help you more than a bunch of jars, especially if you had to leave wherever you were.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 3:24

Right. Well, and I mean, and we even saw recently as this past summer, when there were the really bad storms that hit Tennessee. Or I guess maybe that was early fall or late summer, but people who had a, you know, a pantry full of canned goods, that stuff was completely wiped out. I mean, if if a tornado hits your house and wipes out your house, it's wiping out your entire stockpile. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't put back food. For me really. Like one of the things that drove me nuts when Extreme Couponing was really big, is you had people by like just completely clearing the shelves of stuff just because they could buy it for cheap. And one, I feel that's extremely greedy, because the next person who needs to buy that, and maybe they're also couponing. But, you know, like, for instance, my family, we'd never even when we were I mean, we were completely out of work for a whole month, neither one of us had any income. And we still did not qualify for food stamps, because we had made too much money in the previous 12 months. And so in those types of in, like, we have food banks, but you can only go to each food bank like once every two weeks or once every four weeks, depending on the role of that food bank. So you're extremely limited in like where you can find assistance. And so we were relying on clipping coupons and trying to get stuff as cheap as possible and you know, taking advantage of sales. And then you go to the store and there is none to be bought because it's actually a good deal. And somebody went through and cleared the entire shelf. And meanwhile, they have a garage full of dish soap. It's like, what are you gonna do with all of it? You can't eat dish soap. You know, I would buy dish soap in bulk. But I'll get like, the giant things of it so that I can refill the little one that stays on my sink. And, I mean, the two giant jugs will last us at least six months. Right. So, I mean, what is the purpose of having five years worth of dish soap in your, in your garage? Or your basement? Or what? You know, whatever?

Danielle McCoy: 5:41

Right. And what good is it going to do you if you know, there's no power grid, and you haven't figured out how to supply yourself water? You can't wash the dishes anyway. So it does, you know?

Bonnie Von Dohre: 5:49

Well, I mean, the thing is, you know, I will say, preparedness was actually my job in the Air Force. I taught me the bulk of it was chemical water, chemical warfare defense. But our stateside mission was emergency preparedness, it was teaching people about local hazards, and how to prepare for them and how to, you know, keep their family safe. Because, you know, yes, these guys may someday encounter chemical weapons when they deploy, but 99% of the time, they're going to be home with their families and their, you know, and if they can't keep their family safe, then expecting them to, you know, go off to war, and protect, you know, protect everyone else isn't going to matter when their family is not taken care of. And so, you know, it was not about having a stockpile of stuff, I mean, we would even tell them, Don't worry about having like a month supply of things, worry about having a week supply, because that's going to be at least enough to get you like through the immediate hazard. And then, you know, and then you can kind of replenish your supplies beyond that. But I mean, like, I know, when we had the hurricane, my garden was wiped out. So having a garden really didn't do me any good at the time. Now, we knew how to run a chainsaw. And we knew how to do our own cleanup, you know, the road driveway washed out, we knew we had the tractor, we could fix it. And so we could actually get in and out of our driveway. And, you know, those are the like, this, the skills of how to actually take care of yourself, and not be dependent on someone else to come and rescue you. That's really what's going to help you in an emergency. And, you know, in any type of disaster, and, and I don't worry so much about like stockpiling stuff that I can turn around and trade as currency because to me, like being able to barter skills is going to be a lot more valuable when you've got so many people that just don't know how to do basic stuff.

Danielle McCoy: 8:02

Right. Well, I think, you know, over the last few years, it's become very apparent that there are the people that you talked about warning the people that you taught, you know, don't try to get a month's worth of stuff, just, you know, get through the next week. And I think we've noticed that a lot of people think the other way, like, anytime, crisis, they think they need to, you know, buy all of the things regardless with crisis's. You know, we're just like, we just had a snowstorm. And I went to the store to pick up something. I don't even remember vitamins. And I just happen to walk through the store when I was there. And it was the day before the snowstorm was supposed to hit and it was empty. I mean, there was nothing in the store. They bought all the milk, they'd bought all the eggs, they bought all the meat, you know, it was all gone. Yeah. And it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Because most people are buying more than what they need for the immediate threat. They're buying stuff. Like they're going to be stuck in their houses for the next, you know, 10 weeks. Yeah. And you're not.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 9:08

Right. And the thing is, is like I know, I understand, you know, especially the last couple years, we've realized that the just in time food system does not work. Right. And so yes, we're gonna run into cases where you like the grocery store is you're gonna go in and there's nothing there's not gonna be anything in the meat case. Because I've been almost every time I've gone to the store, the meat case has been almost completely empty. They still have trucks coming in. But people are coming in literally just cleaning out the the cooler as soon as the truck comes in.

Danielle McCoy: 9:42

Right.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 9:43

And I mean, I realize we can't control what other people are doing. So maybe having a week supply isn't enough of a safeguard for people. They want to have more of a buffer than that. Then you can you know, do two weeks worth But when you've got, I mean, people are literally buying like a month's worth of stuff or more. And they may not have the freezer space for it. I mean, how much of that stuff is going bad? And how much food waste? Are we creating? Just because we're just so afraid that it's not going to be there the next time. And the thing is like, okay, yes, I would prefer to have hamburger over ground turkey. But I also can use ground turkey if I need to, if there's no hamburger, you know, it's like, I think that being able to look at stuff as from a problem solving mindset. And like, okay, how can I make do with what is available to me, I think can serve people better in the long term, I know that my I know that my meat supply is not stable. And so we are going to be getting more meat chicks so that we can one provide some to the local area, because obviously, the local area needs more chickens. And I want to put some chicken away in the freezer for us. But again, you know, it's like, I'm going to focus on okay, what will we realistically need for so many months? I don't need like a full year of chicken, four years worth of chicken in my freezer, I can look at, okay, how long does it take me to grow out the next batch, and I can just keep a rotation going?

Danielle McCoy: 11:22

Right.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 11:23

I realize some people are gonna be like, Oh, doing, you know, ordering and meat chicks isn't sustainable. Well, they're only three hours away. The breeder that I ordered from so it's really not that bad. I mean, if worse, came to worse, I could drive to Georgia and go pick them up myself. And then also, you know, we're going to look at probably getting like a quarter of a cow that we can put in the freezer and and have it but it's you know, it's twofold. It's one, it's buying locally supporting local farmers and having enough for us, but also, you know, we have a, we have a big 21 cubic foot freezer that we bought just for the purpose of having a surplus of meat. So I don't have to worry about that, you know. And then, you know, we can focus on growing our own vegetables and doing the best we can I mean, obviously, we can't, you know, foresee every possible scenario. But it for me, it's more about just doing what we can with what we have. And focusing on, you know, best case scenario playing or hope for the best plan for the worst. Right?

Danielle McCoy: 12:32

Right, I think you know, as far as the mindset thing, it's kind of like, when you work with money mindset, and you talk about having an abundance mentality versus the scarcity mentality. And the fact that, you know, the last few years have showed us that, globally, we can't, we can't really depend on the supply chain, necessarily, but at the same time, you know, you find ways to source you know, direct from your farmer. I mean, they, you know, they grow meat and vegetables everywhere. It's not like there's, you know, there's no, not in the United States anyway, there's really not any food desert. So, I think we have to look at it from an abundance mindset, you know, there's, there's plenty to go around. It's just a matter of, you know, using those resources better, I guess, yeah, really what I'm looking for, but, you know, because we throw so much food away, especially here in the US. And like you said, These people are buying all this meat they do they even have freezer space for it, did it go bad, you know, if you buy fresh produce, it doesn't say good. All, especially.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 13:50

People get surprised by that when they buy local, and then it only lasts a few days, it's like, well, that's because it's actually being it's being picked at the peak of freshness, right stuff that you get at the grocery store was picked unripe so that it could travel across the country. And really not even ripening until after you purchased it and brought it home. So yes, it's gonna last a little bit longer, but it has no flavor. Right.

Danielle McCoy: 14:18

But I think as far as being prepared, it's not. I mean, sure, you can grow a bunch of food and you can you know, can it or freeze dried or dehydrated or whatever, and that's all great, but you you need to have the skills to replenish that supply or know where you can obtain more of it. Should something happen that you're not able to like you can't We can't depend on the just in time mentality. But at the same time, it's like we go to the other extreme like Oh, well. They have five pounds of hamburger at the store so I need to buy all five pounds instead of buying one pound and letting you know for other people have a pound of hamburger as well. Right? We have to I think it's kind of sad and depressing to me that we've kind of become a society where that is our that's where people, you know, that's how they think, Oh, well, there's five pounds a hamburger, I'll eat it eventually. So I'm buy all five pounds a hamburger, or there's, you know, three packages of toilet paper, so I'm gonna buy them all..

Bonnie Von Dohre: 15:21

Look out for i and screw the other guy,

Danielle McCoy: 15:23

Right.. That's pretty much yeah, yeah, it's

Bonnie Von Dohre: 15:27

Kind of sad it is. And again, it goes back to like, if you only need a pound for this week, then more than likely there's going to be another pound there next week. And I think that a lot of this also comes back to people being so detached from their food supply. Because the hamburger is just a commodity. It's not a piece of a cow that you raised. And now you're like that, you know, that sacrifice that cow made was for nothing, because you're just throwing away the hamburger because you didn't use it all or whatever. It's, you know, it's just, it's just a thing you buy at the store, and I can always just get more later, right?

Danielle McCoy: 16:09

Yeah, I, since we have I, we were having deer steaks the other night. And one of my kids have like three little niblets of deer steak left. You're gonna eat that, right? I'm full. And I mean, these are like tiny little niblets, and I'm like, No, you're not full. And I'm like that deer did not die, so that I could throw that in the trash or feed it to the ball.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 16:37

It's funny, I have a friend of mine that you would really like because her pettiness is just so much fun. But anyway, she basically. So before the pandemic her, like 90 something year old grandfather, they would go to Bob Evans every Sunday for for lunch. And that was just that was their tradition. Well, of course, since the pandemic, like he has not gone out to eat anywhere. So she decides that she's gonna make them a really nice meal. And so she got like, these really nice steaks and vited her, her grandfather and her uncle over. Well, her uncle is complaining because he apparently doesn't like the store where she bought steaks from. And so she's like, I don't even care. Just like, I'm going to feed his $20 steak to the dog in front of him. That's the way he's gonna be someone is going to enjoy that steak. And I was like, you know, like, cold steak is really good. As a leftover, you slice it up on top of the salad, like, oh, yeah, I agree. But I really want to see the look on his face when I think it's the take to the dog.

Danielle McCoy: 17:48

Oh, and I think that's another thing though, we need to learn to just like we talked about last time, support our local farmers and find ways to source that stuff locally. So the number one we are a little more attached to our food supply. Because the hamburger at the store probably came from several cows. And number two, so that we don't have to worry about you know, like our our stores have not had chicken in weeks. Oh, wow. Like, what are our chickens?

Bonnie Von Dohre: 18:21

Because I actually did talk to the meat department, our store and he's like we're getting chicken because well what it was is I went in there they actually had chicken and I've gone into buy the chicken because I knew they were doing a buy one get one sale, but they didn't have the sign up. And he's like that's because we just got the chicken back in today. He's like the cooler was completely empty. So we took the signs down, because there was no chicken to sell anyway. Like, alright, as long as I know the chicken is is Bogo, we're good. And, yes, I bought two packets of chicken. And guess what I use them all for one recipe because my children are pigs but

Danielle McCoy: 18:58

That sounds not right.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 19:02

That's like it's almost to the point where if I can't buy the bulk package of meat, it's not even worth it to me anymore because like I need the whole bowl package of meat.

Danielle McCoy: 19:11

Yeah, yeah, when we buy stuff at the grocery store, I always buy the the family packs and we end up using like the whole family pack in one sitting. I'm like if this was supposed to if this was meant for like, more than one meal then.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 19:26

Well, I tried it like especially with price of hamburger. I try to stretch it out a little bit. So usually I'll get the three pound pack a hamburger, but like one pound of spaghetti one pound is tacos and one pound is chili or something like that. Right.

Danielle McCoy: 19:39

We'll do that too. Except I've noticed that one pound doesn't make as much anymore. Like yeah, there's a yeah, well, I don't like the city

Bonnie Von Dohre: 19:52

Yeah, there's a lot more moisture in it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and again, that's also why I want to get a quarter pal because I You know, you know, it's just beep. They might, they might cut a little bit of fat and with it, like we do have a butcher or not, is a meat shop. That is really good steaks, but they cut so much fat in their hamburger. And I mean, it's got great flavor. But dang, it cooks, it's really kind of goes back to the whole, like local food supply thing. But there's the whole food is free movement. Have you seen these guys? And yes, I don't, I don't necessarily agree with their message. But, you know, the whole mentality behind it is that if you've got one person who grows carrots, and one person who grows broccoli, and then you guys swap, you're essentially eating for free, right? I mean, the only problem is, you've still got time and inputs. So it's still not free, you've got what you know, sweat equity. But, you know, it's still it's a good way to kind of help help your neighbor out. And if you're worried about you know, being able to eat in an emergency situation or you know, stuff hits the fan, then that's, that's going to be an important part of our communities, and our network is being able to trade things like that, because, you know, we're not going to be able to produce everything ourselves, where they're going to do a half crap job at it, or, you know, we're going to, like fail miserably and burnout. Right. So if you're really just focusing on one thing, then it's, it's going to be a lot easier for you, because you can really kind of streamline your focus and learn to be really good at that one thing. With my animals and animals, but

Danielle McCoy: 21:54

Yeah, I think that, you know, building that community, and you know, like forging those relationships with local people in the event of some kind of disaster or stuff, really hitting the fan or whatever, is going to be the best way to survive whatever it may be, versus, you know, number one, trying to do it all yourself, because it's not gonna happen. And number two, you know, trying to stockpile a bunch of stuff. I just, I've never really understood the whole stockpiling thing. Maybe it's just me, but

Bonnie Von Dohre: 22:29

I mean, like I said, I think I think it goes back to that scarcity mentality, and, you know, being afraid of not having like, the conveniences that you're used to. Because I mean, most of the stuff that they're stockpiling are convenience items. If you're gonna have a true stockpile, it's got to be shelf stable stuff, right? I mean, and granted, yes, you can have, you know, freeze dried food and things like that. But again, eventually your stockpile is going to run out. Right. And honestly, like, I mean, I have a lot of freeze dried food. I you know, I did stock up on it after we had hurricane Irma because there was no, you know, fresh food available. But I liked stuff that tastes good and has, you know, a certain texture and freeze dried food doesn't always do that for me, so,

Danielle McCoy: 23:15

Right. Well, and you know, and that's not to say that I don't think that people should, you know, grow some food or get at the farmers market and can have a bunch of stuff or freeze dried at home if you can afford a harvest right, or, you know, dehydrated rice stuff or whatever. I definitely think everybody should be doing those things. But at the same time, I don't think that we should be going to extremes with it and thinking you know, that we need to have a three years worth of food in our larder..

Bonnie Von Dohre: 23:44

Right. Well, because even I mean, even most of that stuff is going to have a shelf life and even the even the shelf stable stuff has a shelf life, right? I mean goodness, like I've I had to throw out my entire pantry because weevils got into it, you know? So that was only that was only like first bought our place and moved in everything but right. And we had another year that we had a pantry moth infestation like it's just any live and learn. You know, now any dry goods that come home from the grocery store, go in the freezer first.

Danielle McCoy: 24:15

Right to get gamma seal buckets. And those those work.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 24:18

Yeah, well and that's what we we do store a lot of stuff in mason jars and hard plastic. But like if it's coming in, in like the pantry moths came in, in a package of breadcrumbs. And so if I would have put them in the freezer first it would have just killed everything that was in the breadcrumbs. Right. So they wouldn't I mean, yes, if I had them in like a sealed container, then it would have only infested the breadcrumbs. But, you know, right then I whatever. So, yeah, I do that with with beans and well lately pasta hasn't stayed intact. covered long enough to worry about if it's coming home with any stuff in it. It's about the only food group my children will eat. So we same Yeah, but anyway.. This episode was brought to you by kitchen botanicals, your sustainable gardening headquarters, stopped by kitchenbotanicals.com and get a look at our 2022 seed varieties as well as supplies and pest control products to help you with your organic garden. 2022 is a great time to take care of yourself with our pampered gardener subscription box. Every month you'll receive all natural self care products, untreated heirloom seeds, high quality garden tools, organic garden amendments, cute impractical supplies and fun products that we know you'll love. This is your opportunity to take care of yourself in the garden, I started the pampered gardener subscription box, because I had gone through a time of not taking care of myself and dealing with the stress that it put onto my body I was ill I was tapped out and I felt like I couldn't possibly pour any more out of my empty cup. So I created the pamper gardener subscription box for women like me who wanted to get back to what they enjoy, but also wanted to love themselves. So we've put together this collection of gardening and self care products that are geared towards women who love to garden, you'll get things such as gloves, lotion, bags, hats, sunscreen, mosquito repellent, things that you can actually use, but also things that you'll enjoy. And don't worry, there will still be plenty of gardening tools, seeds, we've created a subscription box like no other by gardeners for gardeners order your own box today. Since we've pretty much established that stockpiles don't work. I guess what are some skills that you think people can work on to actually be prepared?

Danielle McCoy: 26:57

I think you know, like if gardening, of course, knowing how to you know, grow food from seed how to propagate, you know, different plants and things like that. I think that is important. Even if you can't stay where you are, like, let's say you had to bug out or whatever you should, you should know how to do it in the climate that, you know, if you're one of those people that plans to bug out you should not do it, the climate that you're going to lead to, as well as the climate that you're currently on. If you're not able to make it to wherever it is you're planning to go. Like we're in zone five here. I know lots of people have property in like the up. And that climate is completely different than it is here. Right? Because it's so much colder. So you know, I think that those things are important. And you mentioned chickens, and I wanted to say that, no, they're not sustainable. We have 25 in our garage, but they're not because it's so hard to hatch them out. Because there's a lot of them are almost to the point where they're sterile. And, you know,

Bonnie Von Dohre: 28:03

They're well, yeah.

Danielle McCoy: 28:05

Made Bonnie.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 28:09

Okay. No, but most of most people that I know that are breeding them like they've got, it's a hybrid cross. So the two lines that they're crossing are fertile. Right? But, uh, yes, obviously, the offspring, you can't breed them and they breed true. Now. The ones that the ones that I've been raising, they actually I had some hens that did hatch out their own eggs last year. But their babies are a lot smaller than the parents were like, they look more than the one I the one that I know of that's running around looks like white rock looks like a white rock head. So they're not going to be true because they're a hybrid. I just for me, any of the other like dual purpose breeds that I've tried to raise have not had the meat to bone ratio. You know, they've just, they've been scrawny. And the meats been a little bit tough. And so I like that they grow fast. And that I don't have to feed them out for a long time. I don't have to keep them for a long time. I can rotate birds through quickly. And I get a nice sized you know, finished bird laughter I'm done butchering it. I like it pretty roast chicken.

Danielle McCoy: 29:23

I know. Like I said, we have 25 in our garage right now. But I think I think we have to kind of use to like those dual purpose furs because honestly, that's more like what chicken is supposed to taste like it's supposed to be tough. It's not supposed to necessarily be you know, nice tender meat because chickens aren't made to grow to full size and eight weeks. They're just not Well, we've, we've got but we've gotten so used to it because that's what you buy at the store. That's you know, like what you and I usually grow out it's what most homesteaders grow out but at the same time. I think we have to get used to There's other flavors and learn how to you know, like what, what bird does best for us like we've tried out several different birds, lots of people grow white rocks, just white rocks, and they, you know, they do take longer to grow out and they're not going to grow out to butcher wait eight weeks but you know, in 16 weeks or so you can probably butcher them and it's still going to be fairly tender and they're going to have a decent meat to bone ratio. It's not going to be as good as the Cornish but and then I know a few people that raise some of the French breeds that I'm not even going to try to pronounce because I don't speak but they've had good luck with those we tried Delaware's and it was an awful experiment. Oh, yeah. I mean, I was

Bonnie Von Dohre: 30:46

Like my, out of the because, you know, we breed our own egg layers. Um, the Austral herbs are a much larger bird, but it takes them a lot longer to fill out. And so I can pretty much only really use them for suit. The extra Barneveld cockerels that I've butchered, have actually made a halfway decent dressbarn better than the Austro LARPs is so if I had to pick the two, I'd go with the barn of elders, but as long as the Cornish crosses are available?

Danielle McCoy: 31:16

Well, yeah,

Bonnie Von Dohre: 31:18

I know.

Danielle McCoy: 31:19

The other benefit to the dual purpose is they can free range and forage. You don't necessarily have to feed them on, you know, grain feed, whereas the Cornish if feed isn't available, then you're kind of screwed because carpet corners can't forage.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 31:34

Now mine mine did. And that's why I like this breeder is they're, they're breeding specifically for pastured poultry. So, and they're in South Georgia, so they're breeding for heat tolerance. So it's, it ended up with a much harder Cornish cross that didn't have the leg problems. They're much more active. I had no problem foraging. I mean, obviously, when they were still chicks, I had to raise them in a brooder. Just like I do all of my other birds. Right, right. For those last few weeks. Yeah, I had them out foraging and running around.

Danielle McCoy: 32:04

And I mean ours, foraged when we raised them before, and I'm sure if I have any grass available before these guys are done, that I can get him to forage, but you know, I still have to supplement them with with feed, you know, there.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 32:17

Yeah. And I still I mean, all of my with feed, but I mean, they're out there are eating bugs, but anytime I've tried to like take them off the the, you know, egg laying goes down, or like they're doing more eating their own eggs. Right. So yeah, it does. They're gonna they're gonna get information problems. Oh, yeah. Right.

Danielle McCoy: 32:39

And then as far as so the meat birds and the egg layers, I think if you can have a rooster, you should have a rooster just so you have, you know, and try to get at least one hen that will go broody for you. So if you don't have an incubator, you know, you can you know, try to get her to hatch a clutch of eggs for you. So that you can have a eggs and or meat. I mean, you can eat any chicken. It's just not really fun to eviscerate or really small chicken.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 33:11

Right for people that are looking for like a breed that will sit on eggs for them. I know like my Austral reps will go broody. Almost annoyingly so. But I haven't seen as much. Yeah, I haven't seen it as much with hash hatchery. Austra LARPs. But like mine are the exhibition heritage bread. So they like as soon as it starts to heat up in the summer they're like nope, I'm done laying eggs and they just sit on everything they can find.

Danielle McCoy: 33:43

You know, ours were Hatchery and ours did that. They all Yeah,

Bonnie Von Dohre: 33:47

They just well and like my are all my groceries hatched. And oh yeah, one of my hatchery. Orpingtons was always broody, too, but I know I know people who will raise a couple of silky hens, just to just so that silkies will lay on or sit on eggs for them. Because Sophie's are so notoriously broody, and they're really good moms. But that's an option. You know, if someone's wanting, they don't want to have to deal with the incubator, but they want to hatch eggs. You can look at having a couple of Sophie's going back to gardening. Something I wanted to mention is planting perennials in your garden or around your garden. Because especially once they're established, even if you do have some type of a disaster, they're going to be more likely to come back for it and keep producing for you. And once they're established, they're a lot less maintenance than just trying to keep your annuals alive. So I

Danielle McCoy: 34:45

I asked various

Bonnie Von Dohre: 34:47

i don't know i haven't had where

Danielle McCoy: 34:49

I was used back.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 34:54

Oh yeah, we had wild black raspberries in Ohio that always did great, but I never even tried to do the domestic ones I'm struggling.

Danielle McCoy: 35:02

Oh, well I'm just saying they get out of hand if you don't keep them pruned.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 35:07

Oh, well yes you do have to keep them for anything that's like vining like that or because they like to come up on they can't up down the route but yes it oh same thing down here are big thing is passion buying you play a passion of mine and it will try to come up three blocks away so what are some other crops I would say like asparagus is a decent. Yeah, annual. Asparagus doesn't isn't super long lived down here, but I'm going to grow it again. I just got some more bare roots.

Danielle McCoy: 35:42

I'm having them all thinking of perennials that are fruit or herbs right now.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 35:48

So okay, it's largely gonna it's largely going to depend on your, your zone. So down here in Florida, we're very tropical. We have a lot of fruit trees that we can do. Rosemary tends to come back. We have some more like tropical type herbs that will come back if they don't get a hard freeze. I am baby babying a Cuban oregano right now to make sure it doesn't completely die off on me.

Danielle McCoy: 36:18

My oregano always comes back.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 36:20

Well no, no, this is Cuban oregano. Oh okay, okay. So it is not it is not even in the same family as oregano but it has the same flavor. So the leaves are like big and fat and fuzzy. I'll send you a picture well once it comes back because the top half of it froze but um but yeah, it but it loves heat. Okay, and you but ginger, and Tumeric like either of the well basically they're the same family. I know. But they are they're perennial down here. In fact, they're one that like you can plant in the shade and completely neglect them and they will thrive. If you're looking at medicinal herbs comfrey is a good one. Pumphrey is almost impossible to kill no matter where you live.

Danielle McCoy: 37:07

Plant it because it will grow everywhere.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 37:10

Yeah, if you're up north mint, downhill or not so much hate don't

Danielle McCoy: 37:15

Plant mint. I always plant mine and pops because

Bonnie Von Dohre: 37:19

Yeah, it does everything. It needs to be like if you're going to plant it in the ground. Be prepared for it to take over. But when we had it in Ohio, like we always had plenty of mint tea available.

Danielle McCoy: 37:32

Yeah, I mean, I grew up mine in pots and it still I mean we all need to make mint tea plenty.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 37:40

If you are in the south where it doesn't freeze peppers can actually be grown as a perennial lump. Sum or an indeterminate tomatoes as long as bait well really down here if you want to actually keep an indeterminate tomato through the summer it needs to be a cherry tomato. Bay leaves although I just killed my Bay Laurel. I didn't mean to I didn't know it was dead

Danielle McCoy: 38:03

A lot of those we can grow up here and pots and just bring them in.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 38:07

Bring them in when it gets cold. Yeah, right.

Danielle McCoy: 38:09

Even like Bay Laurel, I know people out here that this grow like a big potted plant. Yeah, mostly stays inside. I mean, people grow lemons up here. And you know, just right, a big potted plant. So I guess those are all perennials. You can be up here, you just have to be able to bring them in.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 38:27

Yeah, bring them in and out. Well, yeah, cuz that's the nice thing with anything that stays that shrub size is you don't need a giant container for it either. Right? I mean, if you've got like, a five gallon grow bag or something like that, it can live pretty happy in that and just bring it in.

Danielle McCoy: 38:42

I know my neighbors when we live in our old house grew peppers as perennials up here. They put them in five gallon buckets, and they had a sunroom and they would put them in their sunroom in the winter. And then they put them back out in the summer back out the summer. Yeah, they grew some more. I'm like, wow, yeah, no idea. You could do that. Right. They were from like the 80s or something. They knew what they were doing.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 39:05

Well, yeah. I know. That's the funny thing is, like Florida are growing conditions are actually very similar to the Philippines. Right, except that they never freeze and we might get a freeze.

Danielle McCoy: 39:19

I will I will say, you know, even people in suburban and urban areas could if you want a sustainable source of meat, raise rabbits. I was I was talking to this woman the other day about how we need to normalize rabbit meat. Because so many people are like, Oh, they're so cute, fuzzy, and they are.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 39:38

Oh I love eating rabbit meat. I just don't love killing rabbits.

Danielle McCoy: 39:45

But at the same time, you know, like, baby cows are cute. And I know we don't kill them as baby cows. And anybody that says that we do is crazy. But they're cute. Yeah. And I mean honestly cows are cute animals even grown not so much bowls. But even even like pigs, you know, like when you think about it, you know, where do we draw the line of? What's cute? Well, yeah, take you to eat.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 40:15

I've got attached my pigs. I can't imagine like, I mean, I've got my breeders that I probably never get another litter of piglets out of them. But I also can't imagine turning them into sausage. And I realized that makes me saw but,

Danielle McCoy: 40:26

Oh, yeah. Well, like our reader rabbits. I don't think I could. I could picture him and eat them. I don't think yeah, if I was hungry.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 40:37

I was three bred Rs, so we're gonna see if we can get over this hurdle.

Danielle McCoy: 40:41

I said rabbits.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 40:44

Yeah.

Danielle McCoy: 40:45

And gardening? Learn to can.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 40:48

Yes. Well, and you know, I think we've mentioned this before, but cooking from scratch. Also, you know, invest in some good cast iron and learn how to cook over a campfire?

Danielle McCoy: 41:00

Yeah, definitely.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 41:03

Or even you know, if you've got a wood stove, you can use it on the wood stove. That's one thing I love about cast iron is it's so versatile, like it can handle so much heat. So you can do it over the fire or on the stove, I can go in the oven.

Danielle McCoy: 41:16

You don't have to worry about you know, it being safe in the oven up to certain temperature because it'll be fine,

Bonnie Von Dohre: 41:22

Right. Same thing, if you've got a grill, you can use it on the grill. Now one thing I will say. So an issue we ran into a lot with with the hurricanes, is we would always end up having a really hard time finding propane leading up to the storm. So I would say like, have an alternate source for cooking. So either charcoal or have wood. I know you guys keep wood for heating the house anyway.

Danielle McCoy: 41:54

Yes. And I think that is important. Not necessarily that you have wood to heat your house, but that you have a way to heat your house. Should you have you know, like a long term power failure. Or, you know, what have you because even like, even LP or gas or whatever furnaces run off of electricity in order to, you know, kick the fan, right? Yeah. Well, even Yeah, on to ignite just like your oven on the gas stoves. They work off of electronic ignition, and they have a thermostat now.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 42:31

But isn't there a way to still go turn on the light the pilot manually?

Danielle McCoy: 42:36

Not always. There used to be used to be able to see.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 42:40

Yeah, you're back. 20 30 years?

Danielle McCoy: 42:43

Yeah. Right. But now, like we have a gas stove, I can use the stovetop, but you cannot use the oven if there is no power. Okay, because everything is a button on the back of it anyway. So it's not knobs anymore, you know, and everything's electronic, the ignitions electronic and the face.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 43:01

And this is this is why like, I haven't gotten an instapot is like the more electronics you introduced, the more things that can break. Like,

Danielle McCoy: 43:10

I have one, but I don't hardly ever use it. I might get three times.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 43:16

Yeah, I might get an airfryer just because I refuse to get a toaster oven. And it seems like that would be like a nice middle ground. But when it like for pressure cooking, I just have a regular old fashioned pressure cooker.

Danielle McCoy: 43:28

Yeah, I use my regular pressure cooker way more than I use Instant Pot.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 43:32

So yeah. But also in terms of like you're talking about heating your home if you live in the south, also figuring out a way to stay cool. Now, I mean, we have a generator and we ended up borrowing a portable AC unit. Because I mean, I was when we had hurricane Irma Simon was a month old. And I was still recovering from my C section. So it was like we were not handling heat super well. Right. But I mean, there are other ways to stay cool. Like if it's just having a shaded area outside, where you can sit and have like a hand fan or something like that. drinking lots of water. Because I know how much you love to harp on drinking water and destroy the house yet. No.

Danielle McCoy: 44:20

Car just went flying by my house.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 44:24

At least it didn't stop

Danielle McCoy: 44:28

That's a second siren I've heard today though, because we had a fire Shraeger went by like five morning.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 44:33

Oh, wow. Okay. But yeah, and then like I said, you know, just really looking at everything from a problem solving mentality. Like what could what could you do if you had to, with the resources you have available? Or if you couldn't with the resources you have available? What resources could you make available?

Danielle McCoy: 44:58

Like even like you're learning How to like forage you know your local animal foods and of course like you know we mentioned you know always try to source local and and forge those relationships and then as far as like like drinking water especially I don't really know I would assume that if you had like a huge power outage you would run out of water in the city as well but I know a lot of those systems are gravity fed but as well knows

Bonnie Von Dohre: 45:28

Yeah well we had so when we when we we evacuated into town for hurricane Irma and the house we're staying at like they had water up to a point but then the backup power for the water is not called the water station but like where they clean the water Yeah, I know. Yeah, their backup power went out which then meant that the whole town was out and then even once they got the water back up and running then there was a boil water noticed now for us Yeah, our well runs off electric and it pulls a lot of power and so we were not able to keep it turned on on the generator like we would have if we if we needed to use the well we would have to turn everything off everything else off and then run just the well and then we could turn the wheel back because we were controlling the brake How big is your pump? I don't know I you know and it may have had more to do with not having a big enough generator. But we because we have we had an outlet wired into the breaker box so that we can plug a generator into the breaker box. Right and then all we do is we're switching breakers on and off. And yes, we turned off the main so that it doesn't

Danielle McCoy: 46:52

Yes, you have to do exactly if you actually I guess maybe we should mention that because a lot of people don't realize that right? Please turn your main off because you could literally kill a lineman if you do not and we do not want to do that. It is a you know we need that as serious. So please, I

Bonnie Von Dohre: 47:10

If you want your power on keep your line middle.

Danielle McCoy: 47:12

Ah, yeah, I have a girlfriend I used to work with when I was a phlebotomist and she's alignment now. So Oh, wow. No change. I know. So yeah, don't kill her.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 47:23

That's drawing blood to play with high voltage. Yes.

Danielle McCoy: 47:28

Yeah, she just got her journeyman. It's like a year and a half ago. Now Yeah,

Bonnie Von Dohre: 47:34

So yes, if you're going to you there is a way that you can have a licensed electrician come and set up an outlet so you can plug the generator in so it can power your house however, you have to turn off the main that goes to the to the main power line. So that that power is not back feeding up the line and then electrocuting any any linemen that might be working on the line. Anyway, but yes, so I My goal is actually to get a hand pump put on the well. The downside is they really only work on shallow wells, which shouldn't be an issue for us because Florida, our water tables really high. But that is something to keep in mind if you want to get your hands up. I think Matt said it's around 200 feet.

Danielle McCoy: 48:22

Okay, well than yours is deeper than ours.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 48:25

Yeah, I don't know. I got double. He knows better than I do.

Danielle McCoy: 48:27

Ours is like 183 feet at this point. And we hit water at like 45 feet. Okay.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 48:36

A lot of times like yeah, we can hit water a lot more shallow. But to get the good water usually have to go deeper.

Danielle McCoy: 48:43

Right? Yeah. Are like 80 feet down, I think.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 48:48

Yeah, yeah, I'm not entirely sure. So well, we

Danielle McCoy: 48:51

just had all that stuff done. So actually, yeah, like paperwork that tells me all that stuff. Having a hand pump or you know, like a solar pump for unless

Bonnie Von Dohre: 49:05

you live in the woods. Solar doesn't work. So super well.

Danielle McCoy: 49:08

Yeah. But I mean, those are both options. Make sure that you know if if you know that there's impending inclement weather, like a hurricane or whatever, fill your tub or some buckets or whatever, so that you and your animals can have some water. We all I hate plastic bottles, we always keep at least one case of bottled water, at least.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 49:32

We do is we usually keep a little more. Yeah, like we have. So we end up keeping like separate containers for the potable and the non potable water. For for water for the animals. We're we're filling up like every truck we have outside. Inside. If I'm going to fill up the bathtub, I'm probably going to use it to flush the toilet more so than to drink it. But like we have, you know like juice pitchers and I have a lot of the half gallon mason jars. And so like those are usually the things that I'm filling up with water and we are cooler that we're keeping them in, because I'm trying to reduce how much I'm opening and closing the refrigerator, right? And then, you know, and then we'll usually like turn the well on a couple times a day, because for us, we were out of power for four or five days. Right? So we'll turn it on a couple of days, a couple times a day. So we can refill the pitchers and the water troughs, and still have fresh water. But yeah, that's I mean, I'd say that's probably the biggest thing you really have to focus on in terms of figuring out what your water really like, in addition to your food supply, you can go without food for a lot longer, you can go without water, right, figuring out how you're going to keep hydrated,

Danielle McCoy: 50:42

Right. And, you know, there there are things like what the life throws and stuff like that, where if you needed to, you know, get water that's not really potable from a creek or stream or whatever, so that you can get a lifestyle, figure out how to use it ahead of time, because there's a knack to it there.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 51:02

So I actually taught for our homeschool Co Op, I taught a safety and survival skills class for like, upper elementary boys. And I got a LifeStraw like to show everyone how to use it to drink water, like out of a creek, for instance, or whatever. And we had such a hard time sucking the water up through the straw. Because I didn't realize like it needs to be submerged for so many minutes before you try sucking the water out of it because it almost has to like suck the water up first. And then yeah, I don't know. I need to go back and practice with it but

Danielle McCoy: 51:36

but you know, as far as you're talking about having mason jars filled and stuff like that, and that's all great as long as you can plan for it. Like you know, right but I'm taught I was talking about you know, we always make sure we have crummy plastic bottles water, because sometimes you can't plan for it. You know it's true. Like if you have a tornado it's not like you know, a week in advance that you're going to have a tornado. And yes, the tornado could knock your house down and blow the water away but we can all hope

Bonnie Von Dohre: 52:09

and hopefully if you live in somewhere where tornadoes are prevalent, you have some type of a shelter Hi, unless you decide to do something silly like have a double wide and Indiana that doesn't no basement.

Danielle McCoy: 52:26

You live in a double wide and Florida.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 52:30

You don't havethat many tornadoes though.

Danielle McCoy: 52:32

You guys just had a tornado down there.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 52:35

When? Where? when we had Oh yeah. They're not free and you know, tornado

Danielle McCoy: 52:45

hurricane.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 52:48

Tornado shelter is not going to do me a whole lot of good and a hurricane because it's flooded. The thing is, we actually really don't have tornado shelters, period. Because our water tables so high anything underground is gonna flood. Right. So you have to like go find the interior closet and hope for the best.

Danielle McCoy: 53:09

Yeah, we do have a crawlspace on our house. It's just only three blocks. So it's

Bonnie Von Dohre: 53:15

right. Yeah. Ours.

Danielle McCoy: 53:19

Well, that's good. We're not I mean, it's made out of cinder blocks. So

Bonnie Von Dohre: 53:24

No, we have some solar blocks. Yeah, like we have some like some cinder blocks along the fence or along the the metal framing underneath the house.

Danielle McCoy: 53:33

Yeah. And we don't have strapping? Yeah, see, we don't have skirting or any that we actually set on a on a foundation were bolted in. So your family? Yeah. But our neighbors across the street have a big seller. So I mean, we could run over there and lock their door down and so on. We do how we shelter but my point was that if you know you have a tornado or you know something, separately hits the fan and we had some kind of you know, something that happened so that you have some water. And so you can hopefully get more water.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 54:17

Yes. And the point that I was trying to make is that your shelter is a really good place for storing said water.

Danielle McCoy: 54:24

Well, it can also be a great place for storing like your canned goods and things like that as well. So maybe they don't blow down the road. But maybe, maybe theoretically, theoretically, yeah, first aid. Everybody should know basic first aid CPR, everybody should have a pretty robust first aid kit.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 54:48

And the reason if you're living this lifestyle, you are going to put a nail for your hand at some point and not only for you but also for your animals. Well yeah, I usually joke that I have a larger first aid kit for my animals than I do for myself.

Danielle McCoy: 55:02

I think we might talk about this the other day. I know that um, you should, you know, of course know, how to build a self yourself a shelter, and how to source water forage and how to know direction.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 55:19

Oh, yeah, how to use a compass in general,

Danielle McCoy: 55:21

I think, you know, like knowing how to tell direction based off of the sun, the stars, you know, just basic direction, so you're not getting completely lost, how to build yourself a temporary shelter, and how to signal.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 55:36

Alright, so basically what we're trying to get at, alright, focus, not so much on having a stock, a long term stockpile. But focus on like, you know, preserving your own stuff, having enough for your family for, you know, however many months or at the most for the next year. And really just in focus on like, creating or learning skills that are going to help you in emergency help you to rebuild. Obviously, this is a very big topic that we could probably talk about for a lot longer. So look to the show notes for a link to the printable that Danielle is going to create that I will make her finish before next Tuesday.

Danielle McCoy: 56:21

Okay, I got a week.

Bonnie Von Dohre: 56:29

All right. I think that is it for this episode. And we will catch you next time. Thank you for listening to this episode of the grounded simplicity podcast. If we were able to help you in any way, please share this episode with a friend. And also leave us a review on Apple podcasts. You can also join us over on Patreon at Grounded in Simplicity and help to support this podcast as well as become a patron and get a behind the scenes look at the creation of our podcasts and even have some input on future episodes.